Could have slept on this morning but some bloody alarm clock decided otherwise at 6.00 am. Not my alarm clock I might add, I’ve not used one for about 30-years. No, this alarm clock belonged to ChoccyMuffin and I’d promised to drive her into work today. Actually, it wasn’t really 6.00 am it was actually 5:50 am. The clock was set 10 minutes fast. I cannot work out the logic of this so please don’t ask me. Probably one of those strange unfathomable thing’s women do. Anyway, decided not to shower this morning, as I’ll be out on the bike as soon as I get back from taxi driver duty. In any case, I had a shower last month. Grabbed a bonus two zones at Edinburgh Napier when I dropped ChoccyMuffin off at work.
Progress towards the next Roundpointer medal, the 50k, has been better than expected. Managed 71 zones yesterday, much to my surprise. Amazing how they accumulate. Grabbed a few in the morning on way to and from Health Centre riding the Harley Quinn. And I must admit I enjoyed beating the heavy traffic stuck in roadworks at the town centre. Later, out on the Surly Pugsley around Dalhousie Castle and Newbattle off-road routes. Fields are getting quite muddy now. The nice dry conditions of summer fast disappearing. The fat bike is one bike I would miss if I didn’t have one and would want one if I didn’t already own one. In the evening, up to Rosewell with the Surly Ogre. Glad I remembered to take my bike lights as the Gods are switching the dark on early these days. All these sessions adding up to me only requiring around 4500 points this morning. I guess having a PPH of 200 plus overnight also makes a difference.
But first task this morning was to fit those larger tyres I mentioned yesterday on the Surly Ogre. Had to throw a bucket of water over Ogre this morning as he was getting a bit fresh with Harley Quinn in the shed. Good job I stopped him as Harley Quinn is well able to look after herself. Just like the character in the movies. Tyre change went without issue and we were off down towards Dalkeith Country Park, a route I reckoned would give me the points I required. Big tyres make all the difference on rough tracks. So much smoother and more comfortable. All the zones were still neutrals and those additional points were worth having. The magic moment came at zone DalkeithHouse. Up pops the medal alert, now showing the correct graphic. Roundpointer-50k is mine. Job done. Strong winds today, from the west, so hard going cycling back to Bonnyrigg.
There’s always plenty of time when out bike-turfing for some people watching. Amazing what people, or rather their dogs, get up to. At zone A7View, woman on her phone is unaware that her dubious ancestor mutt is busy enthusiastically humping a white poodle-doodle-thing. The elderly owner of said poodle-doodle-thing is busy chatting with her friend. Dogs having a whale of a time. Well, one of them anyway. At zone HolyBuccleach, slick geezer standing at bus stop is busy excavating copious amounts of snot from his nostrils. Man standing next to him takes deep draw on a roll up, bursts into coughing fit, hawks a giant gob of spit, then repeats all over again. Why do people smoke when they know it’s slowly killing them?
So, what next? Roundpointer-75k, that’s what’s next. However, as I’m holding almost all my local zones, I’ll need to travel further afield tomorrow, unless some turfers are out locally tonight. It also going to be wet tomorrow and I don’t like turfing in the wet. Calculations show that Musselburgh and Wallyford are worth about 12,500 points. Tranent and Prestonpans about the same. But that’s around 150 zones which takes some doing. I think I’ll wait and decide tomorrow.
The first four medals in the Roundpointer series are evenly spaced, with 25,000 points between them, so not so difficult to achieve. However, once you reach Roundpointer-100k, the next medal jumps to 250k, then 500k, 750k and then 1M. Bit more effort required for these. I won’t mention the 2m and the 3m. Not going to happen in this universe. At least not for me. Back soon.
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